Jennifer Aniston Deserves Better Than Brad Pitt

In the day following Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux's separation announcement, conversations have quickly devolved into a frenzied debate about whether or not she and Brad Pitt will rekindle their long-dead romance. The two were famously married from 2000 to 2005 before a tabloid-rich love triangle sent Pitt into the arms of Angelina Jolie, his Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star who he admittedly fell in love with while still married to Aniston. But 13 years, six kids, and many a headline later, we now find ourselves in a karma-ripe world in which Pitt is also currently single: He and Jolie split in 2016 after two years of marriage and 12 years together. Twitter, for some inscrutable reason, thinks this leaves the door open to a potential Brad and Jen reunion, but let's be perfectly, unmistakably clear: Jennifer Aniston deserves better than Brad Pitt and all this petty gossip mongering.

Not only is it frankly f---ed up that the internet's idea of romance is getting back with someone who left you for another woman, but Aniston's last decade has been relentlessly defined by her relationship with Pitt. When he and Jolie announced their divorce just over a year ago, it was Aniston'sface, not Pitt and Jolie's, plastered across cover stories, as if she were some vengeful ex ticking off the days until their marriage floundered. So went the woe-is-Jennifer narrative: perpetually single, forever scorned. How could she ever recover?

But Aniston is over all the speculative bulls---. It says so right in the announcement of she and Theroux's separation. "Normally we would do this privately, but given that the gossip industry cannot resist an opportunity to speculate and invent, we wanted to convey the truth directly," read a statement, in part, provided by her longtime publicist Stephen Huvane to the Associated Press. "Whatever else is printed about us that is not directly from us, is someone else’s fictional narrative."

And really, there's zero evidence that Aniston has been sitting around pining for a man she was with over a decade ago, because why would she be? She's since dated Vince Vaughn, John Mayer, and, of course, Theroux, with whom she seemed to share a very caring, supportive love with for nearly seven years. If she's still mourning any relationship, it's likely, you know, the one she just got out of.

Beyond that, though, Aniston has forged a long and decorated career, and post-Pitt, she's landed some of her most laudatory roles. Her acclaimed lead in 2014's Cake was on the shortlist for biggest Oscar snubs that year. So when she has so much else going for her, why is the greater public still so fixated on her onetime marriage? We get it. He's Brad Pitt. But it's been 13 years, and it sounds like homeboy has his own issues to work through. Let's not drag Aniston back into that.

Besides, it's 2018, and Jennifer Aniston don't need no man. Let's all just the woman live.